We were too cocky. While having a fantastic beef burgundy the other night at Nora and Pete's, we had a request for medical horror stories involving the kids, because we're usually good like that. Popcorn kernel in the ear? Absolutely! Two kids on separate occasions! Concussion? Two kids! Swallow a nickel? Hospitalization for a disease you picked up in the ER while waiting to have a popcorn kernel plucked out of your brother's ear? You get the idea. But this time, we had no stories, and we bragged a bit about our recent good fortune. I'm sure you know where this is going. The vomiting began yesterday afternoon and it's still going on, I'm afraid. It's Olivia, but she has no fever or any other symptoms. Just nonstop vomiting. What's most awesome is, just as I began the laundry ballet, our expensive front loader decided it doesn't feel the need to spin anymore. See how I'm giving an inanimate object human thought? That's because I haven't been to bed yet, but now that Olivia seems to be napping comfortably, I've had too much coffee to rest myself. Plus, she only wants Daddy. I am allowed to wipe her mouth, change her clothes, bring her Pedialyte pops, and rotate her barf bowl, though.

Update: The barfing seems to have stopped. Yay! Washing machine is taken apart. Boo!

Sometimes, for fun, I check the analytics report for this site. This week, some of the phrases that people Googled and wound up on my site were:

farting diahrrea accidents
he gets maid uniform for birthday
joel mchale bald spot
husband's foreskin
vomit in headgear

Suddely I feel so, I don't know, klassy.

Must. Stop. Eating. Starting tomorrow! I've got Moon Sand all over the house, but it could really be the best toy ever invented. The three youngest have been pretty much playing it for 23 hours straight, aside from a little recharge nap in the night. Also? The Baby Born Look I Can Swim Doll may be the creepiest toy ever invented. This tiny baby doll swims the minute it's sensors get wet, but occasionally the head pops off while it's swimming. The children woke us up at 5:30am yesterday to see if Santa had come, but Jack later revealed he had been watching a couple (!) of runs of a "Christmas Story" in his bed while he waited for an appropriate time to wake us up. They tore into their gifts and were doing their best at keeping a brave face when all that was under the tree had been opened, but alas, no Wii.

"Henry, will you go fetch my slippers from the TV room?" said the meanest mom on the planet. Head hung low, he slowly marched to the TV room to do my bidding.


"WEGOTAWiiWEGOTAWii!!!!!SANTA BROUGHT A Wii!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"


"WOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!"

And now I have tennis elbow from playing Wii tennis all afternoon. Or is it smoked turkey elbow?

Just checking to make sure they work, I guess.

Nothing says "I love you" like a new toilet seat for Christmas.

It's 5-something am and it's the first day of Christmas vacation. And! I'm even wearing my holiday spirit, finally. Henry helped me find it shoved way in the back of my closet. We were out shopping for one of his best friends, who is having a birthday party today. This little boy has Down's Syndrome, and Henry, who usually buys things based on what he would like (I got a rubberband shooter for my birthday), spent a long, thoughtful time picking out a gift. "I don't think he'd like Legos or Action Figures (Henry's holy grail of toys), probably he would like something that does something when you push a button." After a lot of deliberation, he picked a music maker guitar thingie, something he would never be interested in, but I really do think his friend will love it. Later, at the kids' holiday hell concert (which consisted of the entire student body sitting on the gym floor singing Christmas Karaoke), I saw the little boy give Henry a kiss and hug right in front of all the kids, and Henry just grinned and patted him on the back. And right then, just like the grinch, my heart swelled 10 sizes.

I probably won't be posting much this week, I'm going to try and stay off the computer Scrabble and celeb websites (so if that crazy Spears family pulls another stunt I'll be left in the dark!) and focus on my family. Merry Christmas!

Jesus Christ, how am I going to survive four more days until your birthday? These kids are killing me.

The girls preschool holiday party was fine. You know, no booze or anything, so how much fun could we really have had? One of the moms said to me, "I'll see you tomorrow night at the Middle School Band Concert!" and I made a mental note to dig out Jack's shiny shoes and iron his white shirt.

Yesterday was crazy busy, waiting for the refrigerator guys to show up and bribe them to move the old fridge to the garage (fudge and cokes, baby). Also! The old fridge is working beautifully now, so, yay, I have two refrigerators and no camera. And I'm not even going to talk about how insane I am going already at the fingerprints on the stainless steel. We also had extra kids over, and Henry had a field trip at school. At about 10pm last night, Jack came into my room as I was just getting into bed.

"Um, mom? We forgot to go to my concert."

Crappity crapsticks, I spent the entire night wide awake in agony and guilt, worrying that Jack would be ruined for life over it. I contacted the band teacher first thing, and she was very nice about it, he just has to play a few lines for her after school. He wasn't bothered in the least about missing the concert, either, although he thoroughly was enjoying my massive guilt. I'd gotten up early to email the teacher, and I made him a nice breakfast. What did he say when he sat down? "Oh, yum, I love guilt eggs!" And then, as I was mentioning Henry's winter concert on Friday, Jack said, "Don't worry, you won't forget about it, mom, because you love Henry." Niiiiiiiiiice. He thinks he's so hilarious. Anyway, I'm pretty much feeling like the crummiest mom on earth today. Santa had better damn well come through with that Wii.

For all of you nice people sending me emails/calling about the Wii, thank you! Don't you worry about anything, I just like to keep my kids on their toes and if they think they might not get a toy, they behave just a teensy bit better (Jack, if you're reading this, you're not getting a Wii).

Mitch's mom was up for the weekend, and we also had his brother, sister-in-law, and nephew for a few meals. Oliver, who's four, got initiated into my mean little rule in which, if a child comes crying to me during a game, said game is over. For instance, I heard muffled crying in the garage when the kids were playing in the bouncy house. About 20 minutes later, Olivia comes in with a goose egg on her forehead, but they all said "nothing" happened when I asked. In this way, I don't get bugged by a bunch of whiners, and they learn to suck it up. Everybody wins! I think the kids had to physically restrain Oliver a few times, though.

Today at preschool, a little boy was looking at all the girls and he said to me and another mom: "None of these girls has a penis. I have a penis. And so does my dad, and his is HUGE!" Tonight is the preschool Christmas party and I can't wait to meet this kid's dad...

"You know kids, I've been watching the news, and even Santa is having a hard time locating enough Wii systems for all the kids that want them for Christmas. You may want to have a backup wish, in case he can't bring one for you."

Jack: "I'd love a telescope."

Olivia: "Baby Born Look I can Swim Doll!"

Grace: "What's a Wii system?"

Henry: "I just want Anthony." (his cousin)

And me, I guess I want a dumb stupid refrigerator. I don't know what Mitch wants, but he's getting a dumb stupid refrigerator, too.

Mitch stayed home with a cold today

This is a fairly accurate depiction of what it's like when he's "sick".

A sure sign your children have been watching too many commercials on tv:

Olivia and Grace's version of "Go Tell it on the Mountain"--

"Go, Tell it on the Mountian,
Go, Tell it on the Mountain
Go, Tell it on the Mountain,
We've got Jesus Christ and More!"

Our dishwasher is on it's last legs, and I despise our oven and hate it and I don't like it. Either of these appliances could break, and I'd have a going away party. "See you later, asshole oven that burns cookies!" "Adios, bitch of a dishwasher that leaves my glasses looking like the dog licked them clean!" Our refrigerator, however, is nice and big and delicious filtered water comes out of a spout inside and it's lovely. So, NATURALLY, our refrigerator broke on Friday, along with Jack's braces, which left him with an oozing wound on the inside of his cheek. So I got to combine a trip to the orthodontist to fix said braces with a trip to buy a new refrigerator, all four kids in tow. I had my sheaf of Consumer Reports papers in hand and Mitch met us there. Somehow we ended up with a stainless steel model. Our other appliances are white, which means either we will be replacing our other crappy appliances or our kitchen will be looking all unmatched, and stuff. What's awesomer than an enormous unforseen expense in the middle of December? Nothing, that's what.

On Saturday, Jack went down to Seattle and got to go on his friend Dylan's new sailboat and play video games all night long, so you could say he had a great weekend. Some friends of ours own a barbecue place here and they called Saturday evening to see if we were interested in a freshly smoked prime rib. I was just hauling frozen turkey burgers out of our broken refrigerator, so, yeah, we were interested. And. It. Was. So. Flipping (I wanted to say Fucking, but my aunt reads this, and she's a nun). Goooooood. Olivia's eyes were rolling in the back of her head with each bite, and even Grace ate it, despite it not being in the white food group. We woke up to a thin blanket of snow here on Sunday and the kids made dirt angels in it. Also, Grace made a dog poop angel.

Ugh. The kids were playing 'school' this morning. They were all crouched in the corner with a blanket over their heads.

Me: Why are you guys crouched in the corner?

Henry: In case there's a shooter outside.

Me: I thought you were playing "school"?

Henry: We are. We're playing "Lockdown". We practiced it at my school yesterday.

Words, they escape me.

Our kids are so elfing talented! Click here to see for yourself:

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1187055999

Man, I'm sore today. I used to be able to fall down the stairs and still get in a full night of dancing and drinking, but this aging business is kicking my ass. As you can see, though, we still were able to go to the tree farm and cut down this perfect noble. It got dark fast, so I'm not even sure if you can see it's fat perfection. My husband luuurves picking out trees with me, because I'm so picky, and he knows I'll really take the time to get just the right one. See how it's full daylight above, then, basically the dead of night when we finally picked our tree? That's because I'm the awesomest tree-picker-outer in the world.
That's Jack on the ground, getting in the first cuts.
It's pretty dark, but I'm certain that's a grin on Mitch's face, rather than a grimace.

The day is off to a great start. At 5am, Grace snuck into our bed and I couldn't get back to sleep, so I headed downstairs to make coffee and have some quiet time. I stepped on something at the top of the stairs (which later turned out to be a book), and thumpety thump thump! I fell down the stairs, waking my husband up, who, after seeing if I was allright (I sort of was), decided to go back to bed and brood about money, his most favoritest thing to brood about. Grace ratted Olivia out as to who left the book at the top of the stairs, and Mitch and I are suspicious it's her little way of trying to get me out of the picture so she can have Daddy all to herself.

Yesterday I sent the kids to school in layers, figuring they'd lose power from our wind storm, and got all my no-power gear out, but we surprisingly didn't lose electricity for once. Henry was jealous of the kids in Seattle who don't have school today thanks to all the flooding, and he used his sad face about this to get me to make him a third breakfast. Believe it or not, my little stringbean baby that was on Makehimfat shakes dipped in butter so he could grow some brain has gone from the 20th percentile for weight to the 90th percentile! He's still 95th percentile for height, but I'm going to have to limit him to two breakfasts from now on. I blame Mitch's admin. assistant for giving us all those farm fresh eggs. Hen walks around with a bottle of Chipotle Tobasco sticking out of his back pocket, begging for eggs every chance he gets. He even wants me to send scrambled eggs in a thermos for lunch. Jack, on the other hand, has become alarmingly thin. This I blame on his orthodontics and those stupid healthy eating habits. Maybe I should get a mouth full of metal.

Nana went home today, sadly. Now Mitch has to go back to wearing underwear that has been carelessly tossed into a bin instead of lovingly folded, and the kids are going to have to go back to doing all their chores because I obviously don't love them as much as Nan does.

Yesterday was our one year anniversary of living on this island. We celebrated by having a parade. What I mean is, the girls and I were in our hokey-but-adorable small town Christmas parade. We rode on the preschool "float", and when I say float, what I really mean is old flatbed trailer full of haybales. The girls had a blast pelting kids on the street with candy, especially their brothers, who were standing at the very end of the route. I forgot my friggin' tiara and my eyeballs still haven't thawed out, but it was very fun.

Also, we had our Winter Carnival at the elementary school with Santa, caroling, crafts, and a secret santa shop where kids could bring a little money and shop for gifts for family members. I was a personal shopper who helped the kids pick stuff out. Excruciating. I was near the woman who was helping Olivia and Grace do their shopping, and when she said she would take them seperately to buy gifts for each other, Olivia grabbed Grace by the back of her neck, and whisper-yelled in a low, menacing voice, "I want that fluffy kitty in the basket." I don't know where she learned to act like that.

My first thought when I woke up this morning was of moving day last year, when the movers, a particularly sadistic bunch, had packed my coffee maker in THREE DIFFERENT BOXES! Yes, I just yelled, internet, because I'm still pissed about it. I was insanely ripping boxes open at 1am because I refused to go to bed without knowing I had coffee to wake up to. Also, the espresso maker was in three different boxes. Jerks. I curse you! With the amount of Xanax I was popping that day, how on earth did they expect me to wake up without my coffee? I'm really going to try and put it behind me now, because Mitch is tired of me bitching about it every month or so. Assholes.

Grace had a rare lightbulb moment today. She realized that if she's already on the Naughty List, it's like she's got free license to be a bad as she wants. We pulled both Henry and Grace out of the gift closet today where they were snooping mightily. I'm going to put some decoy gifts in there with their names on them. Socks and whole wheat flour for Henry, and cleaning supplies and a bag of vegetables for Grace.

A 'Charlie Brown Christmas' was on last night. Mitch made the comment that he's like Charlie Brown, and I'm exactly like Lucy Van Pelt. Huh? Wha? I'm guessing he identifies with Charlie Brown because he sees himself as long-suffering, or maybe because they have matching hair patterns. Whatever. I don't see myself as a Lucy at all, though. He says it's because I email him links to the exact items I want as gifts and because I'm generous with unsolicited advice (See! Right there is a flaw in his logic. Lucy charges 5 cents). Who does he think he is? Lucy is a bitch. What a blockhead.

Picture, if you will, our little hippy-dippy preschool where everything is a cooperative effort and the children are free to choose any activity they desire (as long as no one or no thing is hurt by it, naturally). Enter Nana. She told one kid he was "full of crap" (he was), and also told a new mom to "get a blanket on that baby!". The kids loved her anyway, of course. Except for the kid who was full of crap.